so i'm sure the department will say -- in fact, last week chairman dempsey said we're going to sort of manage these cuts in a way so that noncritical readiness accounts will be protected. well, when you come down to it, there's not much that isn't pretty critical to readiness, things like the money that goes to get people to show up in the units at the right time, buying gasoline and ammunition to do training with, paying the contractors who run the ranges who masquerade as pmy combat about thes -- enemy combat about thes at training centers and so forth. so the idea this is not going to have a pretty quick effect on combat effectiveness of guys and gals who are going into harm's way, it is sort of, you know, just a fiction. but that's just, again, the immediate effects of sequestration. it's possible that a budget deal of some sort or even more likely that the president's 2014 budget will chart a course forward for the defense department wherein sequestration-level spending becomes the ceiling not the floor. the president, i mean, again, we have no real clue what his thinking is other